UPDATE: More grist: “law enforcement sources” now telling NBC News that Carey, “may have thought that President Barack Obama was stalking her.” Old boss tells NBC affiliate that she was fired from old job for being “too rough” with dental patients.

UPDATE 10/6: Little more is known about Carey or what happened on Thursday. Stories emerge that suggest she was taken in for a “mental health evaluation” last December. More troubling are reports that she was shot inside her car. Remember, initial news flashes said Carey had emerged from her vehicle after crashing it on the Capitol Grounds, suggesting she might have acted aggressively toward awaiting police. Thankfully, some Beltway writers are showing more skepticism toward the cops’ version of events today.

The New York Daily News should be ashamed, as well as any other news outfit that has jumped to conclusions in favor of the mentally-ill-woman-police-were-just-doing-their-jobs-and-by-the-way-they’re-heroes-we-live-in-a-scary-world storyline. But the New York City paper, known for dwarfing word space and actual copy with hyperbolic Citizen Kane headlines and even bigger paparazzi photography, takes the prize for reporting on yesterday’s shooting of an unarmed mother on Capitol Hill.

There was horror on the Hill when a crazed Connecticut woman who tried to ram her way into the White House was shot and killed Thursday after leading police on a high-speed chase through the heart of Washington.

Now we know someone is trying to earn their hard-boiled, wiseguy writing chops here, but step off Lee Tracy, this account is so far from reality that it goes beyond Big Apple embellishment. It’s just plain wrong. There is no evidence, yet, that 34-year-old Miriam Carey of Stamford, Connecticut, who has been identified as the dead woman, tried to “ram the gates of the White House,” which the Daily News and a host of irresponsible news reports charged willy-nilly on Thursday. As for being “crazed,” there is some thread of unknown origin that Carey had been suffering from “mental illness,” “mental issues,” “depression” and/or “post-pardum depression” (the last two were from the Daily News gumshoes who stalked Carey’s family in New York Thursday night, snapping photos of their weary faces from across the street).

Simply put, from all the interviews I’ve scanned on the story — some of the most authoritative reporting I’ve seen so far has been from The Washington Post — the best picture I can get is that Carey was a dutiful dental hygienist, who was generally liked, and for some unknown reason drove down to Washington with her one-year-old daughter in a luxury car, where she led police on a deadly high-speed chase.

Meanwhile, eye-witness accounts and raw video tell a different story about “crazed woman” in the Infiniti sedan. It looks like she might have made a wrong turn down a cordoned street (of which there are many) around the White House (though to be entirely fair, the DC police chief says it was no “accident,” but has offered no details to that end). She was yelled at, according to witnesses, by a plain-clothed guard and others who banged on the hood of her car. She freaked, hit the guard and a makeshift barricade that was put in her way, then tried to turn around and flee. Shots were fired at her car and the chase ensued. It ended in a hail of bullets when Carey emerged from the car (see UPDATE), outside the Hart Office Building on Capitol Hill (not far away), reportedly unarmed. From Time:

B.J. Campbell, 69, a tourist visiting from Portland, Ore., said he saw the black car drive past White House security. Officers began “banging on the car, yelling at her,” Campbell told TIME. One tried to use a bicycle rack to box in the vehicle, but the car spun around and rammed into the rack and hit the officer, who was not wearing a uniform. The officer, whom the Associated Press identified as a Secret Service agent, was knocked onto the hood of the car and rolled off onto the street, according to Campbell. However, another witness said the officer got up and did not appear to be injured.

No evidence yet has been provided, save for rumors, that she was “crazed,” or that she was trying to “ram the barricades” in some Kamikaze-style mission to wreak havoc on “the heart of our nation,” which, frankly, is how the blaring headlines sounded the alarms here in Washington yesterday when the facts were still fuzzy. Capitol Hill was on lock down, with everyone — last month’s horrific Navy Yard shootings no doubt fresh on their minds — fearing the worst. Washington, the city under siege. The media, which is always in the same place at the same time on Capitol Hill, swarmed the crime scene. But it turned out not to be the work of terrorists at all, but an unarmed black mother whose side of the story, essentially, will go to her grave.

Meanwhile, beyond the garish headlines and the applause — yes, the police got a “standing ovation” from members of the House of Representatives afterwards, ostensibly for riddling a woman’s car and body with bullets — we know nothing except a woman is dead and her child, motherless.

The police will no doubt be excused for engaging in a dangerous high speed chase through the streets of Washington, endangering pedestrians and the child inside (there are confusing reports about whether they saw the baby inside before she left the White House area or not) and then shooting Carey dead. This is a post-9/11 world, where she could have easily been careening toward the Capitol, armed with a trunk full of explosives, right? The truth is, more people are killed by cops each year than terrorists have attacked our cities. We need to get to the bottom of what happened to Miriam Carey, and keep the terror bugaboo out of it. And please, New York Daily News, stop acting like a law enforcement apparatchik, just do your job and report the facts. If they’re not readily available, don’t make them up.

2190853 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Fantiwar.com%2Fblog%2F2013%2F10%2F04%2Fdc-shooting-shame-on-you-new-york-daily-news%2FDC+Shooting%3A+Shame+on+You+%3CI%3ENew+York+Daily+News%3C%2FI%3E+2013-10-04+12%3A30%3A30Kelley+Beaucar+Vlahoshttp%3A%2F%2Fantiwar.com%2Fblog%2F%3Fp%3D21908 to “DC Shooting: Shame on You New York Daily News”

The Congress giving a standing ovation over that is a pathetic disgrace and an affront to life itself. No one should applaud the slaughter of a mother in front of her kid. The fact that she was killed and the fact that the entire city crapped on itself only serve to indicate that DC is packed full of cowards – gun-toting or otherwise.

And speaking of her child, has anyone noticed that the media coverage about her has been crafted in such a way as to imply that she was little more than a hostage of her mother?

Its good to know the facts and I am soooo sorry for the child, and now what he or she will now have to grow up without a mom, but given the circumstances, all could have been avoided. If this woman were to have stopped for the police. If the killing of this woman would have been any where but by the White Huse,I would feel the Authorities acted with too much force, but They did desereve a standing ovaition as her actions didn't left them to think anything other than terroist and act accordingly so you yourself should not throw stones.

Sorry. This is baloney. You DO realize that there was a massacre at the NAVY YARD 15 minutes away last week? You Di realize that 55 people were killed by car bombings in Iraq last week?
You do realize that 130 people were killed in Nairobi by terrorists last week?

How about the Boston Bombings???

They had ZERO knowledge of her intent, as she was deranged.

How were they to know if she had 500 lbs of plastic explosives or dynamite in her trunk or not?

The only way would be for her to STOP and be searched, especially after hitting a Sevret Service agent. Remember, this is a SECURE area. Do here we have a driver who rams a security checkpoint with her car, then flies down a secure zone, past cop cars trying to stop her, gets boxed in at the SENATE entrance to the CAPITOL across the street from the SUPREME COURT.

She was just at the Executive, Congressional and Judicial branches of our Federal Government…

If they are doing their job, they will try to stop her one more time and if she refuses to comply, they will stop her as the last thing they want is a car bombing.

She died, Suicide by Cop.

Leave it at that and don’t embarrass yourself.

She crossed all the lines, this is the SEAT of Government, not Stamford, Conn., where she was from.

Did you ever stop to ask yourself WHY she drove 6 hours to end up at the WHITE HOUSE???

I am a serious Man of Color, hardcore Democrat. came out of the Movement, and Baby, I approve this message.

Parents…keep on teaching your children that the police are the enemy,just out to poop your party,and they are to have NO respect at ALL for law enforcement officers,and YOU will perpetuate scenes like this 'till it happens to them!

Mr. Capps, there's no evidence that the victim was anything other than an ordinary citizen and young mother who panicked when unexpectedly surrounded by men with guns pounding on her car. Your statement makes no sense whatsoever.

I teach my children, as any loving parent would, to be very wary of police, avoid them whenever possible, recognize that they are not there to serve the public and are at best a nuisance and at worst extremely dangerous, and never to trust them. In other words, the truth.

police keep killing what seem to be unarmed people and don't be surprised if people have NO respect at ALL for law enforcement officers and conlcude that all police are the enemy and that they teach their children accordingly

This is so sad; my prayerful concerns go out to the family of this beautiful young lady. May justice prevail and may they stop using negative press towards President Obama as a way to jeopardize the vision God Almighty has given him towards this nation. Shame, Shame , Shame on you all. As an individual who knows something about mental illnesses. I bet the President was the last thing concerning this young woman.Who gave the diagnoses that she felt she was stalked by President Obama? He's doesn't appear to be a stalker to me. May the Almighty have Mercy on your souls for this accusation of our nation leader.

[...] a regular Antiwar.com columnist and contributing editor at The American Conservative, discusses the media’s lousy coverage of the D.C. car chase/shooting; the militarization of trigger happy law enforcement officers; and [...]

The problem with people like you is that you are cowards. ANYTHING could be terrorism, by your ridiculous reckoning. So you'll stand around like cattle at the airport and endure any indignity, just because someone might be a terrorist. Wait until you get thrown out of your house when the Stasi decide that your neighbor is a terrorist and they need to establish a perimeter! They did that to the neighbors of Miriam Carey, by the way. You'll slurp that indignity right on down, too, and praise the swine that deprived you of your home for a day or three. You are Boobus Americanus, and you deserve the gulag that awaits you, zek.

The ghost of Osama has turned peace officers into cold blooded killer, its shoot first and make up a story later. This is just a senseless killing and could be avoided if these officers weren't so damn scared of their own shadow.

Why not? 'White' is no longer the default identity to be assumed for all USAians unless otherwise noted. It would be equally to the point to note the racial composition of the police contingent that killed her. A major factor in USAia's spiralling civil and military insanity is unacknowledged race hatred, concealed in 'respectable' reportage by a cowardly and dishonest assumption of official colour-blindness. It would be more honest and useful to admit that there is a racial dimension to all US events.

Not much different from when FBI noble sniper hero Lon Horiuchi shot Vickie Weaver between the eyes while she held her baby in her arms at Ruby Ridge, Idaho back in 1992 or the Waco massacre the following year. So-called "law enforcement" officers are nothing but cowardly, 70-I.Q., thuggish, steroid-popping murdering communist bastards, scumbags and parasites. All government parasites who enable this evil system are guilty of terrorism and crimes against the people, from the President down to the lowliest cubicle-dwelling paper-pusher.

The idea behind killing someone is to silence that someone, when someone is silence they can not tell you the reason for what they did. After the death everyone can come up with a story and some even are sorry for the baby and etc. but the reality is that Obama didn't stocked this women and even if he did we wouldn't know that, would we. In the other hand the police brutality in USA is over and above the basics laws, like they could have called the DMV find out who she was within the first 5 minutes, the next steps would be to shout the cars tires, the next steps incircle the care making it to stop totally and give that women a chance. All of the above would demand a creative time and mind, but shouting the unarmed women is easier knowing you would be apprised by those who think like you.

you say that as f the police does not have a history of shooting down unarmed black men and women going back to early 1920s lol

there was a video clip posted a while back of police officers beating down a black man for fucking jay walking. I hav watched first 48 and several other shows and you never see them use the same force on white pedophile,rapist,shit even serial killers

what a tragedy that this lady couldn't get the help she might have needed and with all the post 911 security,what a shameful display of power that she wasn't given some sort of alternative .i think anger akin to road rage is the factor here,

Jack, it would appear that at some point the option to stop and be searched was not an option. When she came to her senses, stopped and got out of the car she was killed. No Questions asked.
I have to ask, do you really think she deserved to die? People who murder others get to walk, but she had to die???

It does seem to have become a trend for the law enforcement people to kill rather capture the suspect. Last week, the Navy Yard assaulter was also summarily killed. It is "cleaner" that way – no lawsuits, no demonstrations, no costly trials, – just a whole lot more "respect" from the populace that rightly fears the fascist thugs

Single, African-American mothers constitute the highest tier of secular living saints in our society. That makes Miriam Carey a martyr, pure and simple. Now the question is: Who is responsible for her martyrdom? Asked and answered.

If Obama had a daughter, she would look like Miriam. Oh wait, he has two daughters. And they do sort of look like her. Oh my!

the response of authorities was so far out of proportion to the threat as to be bizarre — except that we have come to know this as standard operating procedure in our authoritarian state. shoot first, ask questions later; kill 'em all, let god sort 'em out; off with their heads! we have a peculiar way of dispensing "justice" in the USA, and the evidence is pretty much unassailable (unlike us government subjects).

Perhaps people like Thomas Capps, Sonya and the legions of badge lickers out there should experience first hand the boots of the state. Perhaps getting their rights violated and getting harmed might open their eyes a bit but I doubt it

No, "peace" officers didn't need the "ghost of Osama" to turn them into "cold blooded killers." Police brutality and murder have been around a lot longer than Osama bin Laden, who did nothing more than give these "peace" officers an easy excuse for what they'd been doing for many, many years anyway.

Just as one example, take the 1985 bombing of the "MOVE house" by the Philadelphia police. Look, you can have any opinion you like about the MOVE folks, but you don't drop a bomb on an occupied row house in West Philly and burn down an entire neighborhood! That's a fact that was acknowledged even by Mayor Goode's own self-appointed investigative task force, which condemned the irresponsibility of the police actiion.

I agree, this is a awful thing that has happened & there are no "winners" the cops receiving praises for killing this woman who had mental issues in front of her child, is rather disgusting. At the same time I do understand why the cops made the decision to use deadly force. The officers couldn't risk the chance of anyone getting hurt. As far as the media coverage goes, things are always twisted & not entirely accurate which really grinds my gears.

[…] come as no surprise as the immediate response to what happened on the afternoon of Oct. 3 was a shame on everyone: the members of congress who gave the men who shot her dead a standing ovation, the Hill staffers […]

So the next time Human Rights Watch comes out with a report that’s critical of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians, I’ll assume that you’re going to be saying the same thing, correct; that you think that the report is credible, it’s based on eyewitness accounts?